Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Common Room, Stewartby, Stewartby, Bedford

Summary

Common room (or pavilion), built in 1955-6 to the designs of Sir Albert Richardson with E A S Houfe, as a centrepiece and community meeting place for the Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Homes, Stewartby.

Description

Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Common Room, built in 1955-6 to the designs of Sir Albert Richardson working with his son-in-law, E A S Houfe.
MATERIALS: principally built of mass-produced, narrow two-inch-by-nine Fletton bricks, manufactured by the neighbouring London Brick Company. The bricks, laid in Flemish bond, have a finely-grooved texture, giving a rustic appearance. Cast-iron columns on stone plinths support a timber tongue-and-groove panelled veranda ceiling and a green copper roof.

PLAN: rectangular double-height hall with a covered verandah walkway running the perimeter of the building, bordered by an apsidal terrace situated to the south.

EXTERIOR: the external walls of the common room are set back from slender columns that run all round the building and which support a bell-cast roof capped by a thin, Scandinavian topknot or finial. The screen of columns marks out a slightly raised, paved terrace which runs the perimeter of the building to form a covered verandah. In the centre of the principal frontage are a set of double-doors with a substantial neo-classical door surround which is framed by pilasters and a corniced architrave, this integrating margin windows and a band of upper lights. Set directly above the double-doors is a relief-cast plaque, unveiled on the occasion of the estate’s opening, which carries the inscription:

‘SIR MALCOLM STEWART HOMES / THESE HOMES WERE ERECTED UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF / A GENERAL CHARITABLE TRUST FOUNDED BY THE LATE SIR P. MALCOLM STEWART BT., O.B.E., HON. LL.D., D.L., J.P., / FORMER CHAIRMAN OF LONDON BRICK COMPANY LIMITED / FOR THE OCCUPATION OF OLD SERVANTS OF THE COMPANY / THE HOMES WERE OPENED ON WEDNESDAY 23rd MAY BY / BEATRICE LADY STEWART’.

Above this plaque is a thin, delicately carved acanthus leaf detail, which punctuates the upper-band of lights that surmount the entrance. To the left (east) of the doorway is a relief-carved stone panel of the Stewart family coat of arms, re-set on the frontage after the building’s opening in 1956. The side elevations (west and east) are identical, both of seven bays, the first six of which, read from the entrance, feature double-height windows, the final bay including a projecting bay window with heavy moulded cornice surmounted by a small porthole window at first-floor level. The rear elevation has a central door with an upper-band of five lights within a simple moulded stone door surround, set beneath a Diocletian window and flanked by a pair of 6/6 sash windows.

INTERIOR: the principal area of the common room is the double-height central hall, which is accessed by an entrance lobby at the front of the building that also leads to male and female toilets, to the west and east respectively. Set to the rear (south) there is a small library room (west side) and a kitchen (east side), above which is a first-floor area, originally intended as a warden’s office, though now principally used for storage. This is reached by a straight flight of stairs rising from the east side, set against the back wall of the hall. The central area of the rear portion of the building is occupied by a service entrance which provides additional access to the kitchen.

The entrance lobby of the common room contains a set of double doors with a finely detailed neo-classical door surround, featuring projecting pilasters and a moulded cornice, which supports a gilt model of a sailing galleon (re-set from its original position on the finial of the roof, following a storm which dislodged it). The entrance lobby doors lead to a five bay hall with dado-level panelling, incorporating radiators behind fretted covers (which serve the original oil-fired central heating); these are set between double-height windows shielded by curtains set in deep pelmets under a simple cornice. The windows are oak-framed casement types, with an unusual internal secondary glazed casement offering additional insulation. The south end of the hall features a cambered arch recess with a broad, stone fireplace (above which is a large portrait of Sir Malcolm Stewart). Bronze busts of Sir Malcolm Stewart (1872-1951), his father Sir Halley Stewart (1838-1937) and his son Sir Ronald Compton Stewart (1903-99) are positioned on wall brackets along the back and the west walls of the hall. The room contains original furniture designed by Richardson and intricate hanging lights, in an antique style that incorporate candles as well as semi-concealed light bulbs.

Other internal features of note include the original internal wooden doors and fixtures throughout, cupboards and fittings in the kitchen, and the original staircase with moulded handrail. At the front of the building, both the male and female toilets retain original latrines, cubicles, basins and floor tiles.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the south of the common room is an apsidal paved terrace marked by low-set brick walls interspersed with iron railings; these flank a central lock-up storage structure with a copper-clad concrete roof and a set of wooden doors.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 17 August 2017.

History

Stewartby was laid out as a model garden village in 1926, adjoining the historic hamlet of Wootton Pillinge (around six miles south-west of Bedford), to provide housing and amenities for the workforce of the London Brick Company (LBC), known prior to 1936 as London Brick Company and Forders Limited. It was founded by Sir (Percy) Malcolm Stewart (1872-1951) and largely built by F W Walker, architect to the LBC. The company arose as the result of a series of amalgamations led by Sir Malcolm’s father, Sir Halley Stewart (1838-1937), who had taken over the brickworks of B J Forder and Son, founded in 1897 at Wooton Pillinge. The first houses of the model village were occupied in Churchill Close in 1928, and in 1929 a war memorial hall, which remains the most prominent building in the village, was built to the designs of E Vincent Harris in memory of local villagers who fell in the First World War. As the brickworks expanded, becoming the largest in the world by 1936, so Walker built more housing and in 1937 a school was completed to the designs of the architect Oswald Milne (1881-1968). At this time the village, incorporating Wootton Pillinge, Wootton Broadmead and part of Kempston, became a civil parish, taking on the name Stewartby.

The family name was given to the village by Malcolm Stewart, the descendant of a strong Congregationalist family, who was noted for introducing welfare, holidays with pay and pension schemes for his employees. He had also promoted consultation and profit sharing amongst the workforce and, in 1934, had given over land at Potton in Bedfordshire to the Land Settlement Scheme to retrain long-term unemployed industrial workers as agricultural smallholders. Stewart’s tenure at the LBC was notable for the series of socially conscientious projects he initiated, and, as his obituary in 1951 in the Bedford Times summarised, the provision of ‘social facilities [for workers] were for many years one of Sir Malcolm's first considerations'. The Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Homes, with their central common room, thus constitute the last phase of several decades of charitable building by a significant manufacturer and philanthropist in the mould of W H Lever and George Cadbury.

The charitable trust which would be responsible for Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Homes was founded in 1945 with the stated purpose of providing ‘housing for old servants of the company, or their descendants, whose declining years might be made more comfortable if they were relieved of some of the expense of maintaining a household’. The first housing was built only after Stewart’s death, perhaps because of the restrictions on private building caused by building licences until 1954, or possibly because other housing in the village took precedence. The first 24 bungalows and the common room were built in 1955-6 and opened by Stewart’s widow, Lady Beatrice Stewart, on 23 May 1956. The housing was reserved for workers at the brickworks with fifty years or more service, who were entitled to a bungalow free of rent and rates for the duration of their tenure.

The architect of the common room and housing was Sir Albert Richardson (1880-1964), a significant figure who became president of the Royal Academy in 1955, working with his son-in-law, E A S Houfe. By the 1950s Richardson was the most prominent architect working in a traditional style, known also for having edited the Architects’ Journal and writing several books on classical architecture and other related subjects. Richardson was responsible for restoring churches by Wren and Hawksmoor in London after the war and for new buildings in the City, notably Bracken House, built in 1959, which in 1987 became the first post-war listed building (Grade II*; NHLE, 1262582). Other listed buildings designed principally by Richardson include 1-8 Hugh Street, on the Duchy of Cornwall estate, Isles of Scilly, built c1926 (Grade II; NHLE, 1328825), St Margaret’s House in Westminster, built c1929-31 (Grade II; NHLE, 1249911), The Jockey Club in Newmarket, built c1933 (Grade II; NHLE, 1285869), Holy Cross New Church in Ealing, built 1939 (Grade II*; NHLE, 1079417) and Clareville House, designed 1955 and built 1961-3 (Grade II; NHLE, 1251179). These examples are in addition to numerous restoration projects undertaken by Richardson, many of which are listed buildings in their own right.

Over the course of his career Richardson’s work was principally focussed on churches, country houses or major public buildings, though a set of pensioners’ bungalows for the Pond Estate in Greenwich, built in 1953-4, have particular similarities with the work at Stewartby. These are rather smaller than the Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust examples, but feature a related assemblage of sashes and small porthole windows which pre-empt the work at Stewartby; these features being notable in the common room and the housing. Richardson was devising his ‘candles’ at Cambridge around the same time as designing the common room, and had a particular interest in lighting, which is evident in the common room, as it is with the lamp-standards in the adjoining housing. On a personal level, Richardson had a particular local connection to the work at Stewartby, living from 1919 through until his death in 1964 in neighbouring Ampthill, located less than three miles to the south of the village.

The common room is the key focal-point of the estate, its prominence underlined by its central position in Richardson’s site layout and its scale in relation to the single-storey houses. The initial housing formed a symmetrical plan of two courtyards set either side of the central axis that led to the common room. An octagonal brick-built water tank, which is shown in early photographs and indicated on Richardson's plans of August 1954, was sited to the east of the common room. This was lost by 1964, at which time a second phase of 36 bungalows were built by the surveyor to the trust. The designs of these later bungalows closely followed those of Richardson, creating a crescent around the earlier housing. These were followed by eighteen more homes which formed a separate courtyard to the east in 1970. In 1978 a final eight homes were added to form Stewartby Way, situated on the south-east side of the estate.

The housing is open to non-employees over 55 years old and several houses have now been sold to private buyers. All households continue to have access to the common room for community activities and also benefit from a warden, various on-site services and groundskeepers responsible for maintaining the landscaping of the estate, which are supported by an annual service charge paid by incoming residents who arrived after July 2010. In 2016 it remains the case that many residents of the estate are former employees of the London Brick Company, though the plant at Stewartby last operated under this name in 1993 (having been taken over by the Hanson Trust prior to this). The brickworks continued to operate for a further 15 years with production finally ending in 2008. In January 2008, two kilns and four of the chimneys at the Stewartby brickworks were listed Grade II (NHLE, 1392357).

Reasons for Listing

The Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Common Room is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: for the refined design of the common room; particularly the copper, bell-cast roof and the intricate detailing of many internal fittings;
* Architect: Sir Albert Richardson was a nationally renowned figure who by the 1950s had become the most prominent architect working in a traditional style in England;
* Degree of survival: the common room remains almost entirely unaltered externally and internally from Richardson’s original design, notably retaining its complete plan-form and many internal fittings;
* Historic interest: the common room along with the rest of the trust estate constitutes the last and best preserved phase of several decades of charitable building by Sir Malcolm Stewart, a significant manufacturer and philanthropist in the mould of W H Lever and George Cadbury;
* Group value: for its intrinsic relationship with the rest of the Stewartby model village and the Grade II listed kilns at Stewartby Brickworks, which, by the 1930s, was the largest brick manufacturer in the world. Of particular interest is the relationship with the Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust Houses, also designed by Richardson, for which the common room was designed as a centrepiece;
* Rarity: as a very late and significant philanthropic project undertaken by a major industrialist, distinguished from other comparable buildings of this type and date by its conspicuously fine design and internal detailing.

External Links

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